Everyone Is You... Or Me Frank Oppenheimer, Reprinted from Technology Reviewm Volume 78, Number 7, June 1976 Copyright 1976, Alumni Association of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139

In my youth I used to wander in the mountains. I would gain a "feel" of the terrain and gradually build up a reliable intuition of how to get from here to there and back again. Always, on these expeditions, I would discover special places - a tiny area, the only one, where fairy slippers grew; a pool in a rushing stream that was deep enough to swim in. Invariably I would find myself excitedly climbing some promising knoll or uppermost peak. Suddenly a whole new vista would open up, showing a great expanse of prairie, a hidden lake in some inaccessible canyon, an entire new ridge of peaks.

As a result of these solitary expeditions, I would tell friends what I had found and would want to show it all to them. Somehow it was especially important that they see the view, often at a special time of day - perhaps precisely when the sun was setting. But we would start late or they would be unable to walk as fast as I. I would point to the place where I had found the fairy slippers, but we would walk on by. We would reach the top, and the view would be well worth the effort and the Frank Oppenheimer, director of the Exploratorium hurry. But gradually I began to realize that there was something wrong with these when the grade was too steep, and built revisiting expeditions. Although the view far bridges or steps when the terrain was outweighed anything along the way in impassable. But for those who built the course wondrous and memorable experience, the and came to know it well, it was crucial to events along the way had been an integral part reach the panorama of the final chapters, of the trip for me, and would also have to be so which put together everything that had gone for the people I wanted to bring pleasure to. If before and opened up grand new vistas. From the trip was spoiled through hurry or painful the vantage point of Bohr's model of the atom, effort, then no one was moved to go searching one could look down and see where one had for views on his own. come from and how different and tiny everything looked down there. One could look When I was teaching physical science to high out at new terrain that begged for future school students, I felt the same kind of thing exploration. But in order to reach the vantage happening. The course was certainly an point soon enough, the trip had been spoiled. improvement on my mountain expeditions. It There was no opportunity to explore cleared the trail, mapped out switchbacks unexpected and pleasant nooks along the way. The Exploratorium - or any good museum - is a response to the problems that beset both my guided tours in the mountains, and teachers who feel they must "cover the ground."

At the Exploratorium we've invented a new style of exhibit to do it.

Interchangeable Links in Common Chains

Consider our audience as contemplating a tree. Science museums all describe Why is the Relative Motion Swing - a swinging table themselves as having interactive, involving, beneath a pendulum of the same period - such a good hands-on exhibits. But they misunderstand the exhibit? Because it can be used in so many different implication of the terms they use. A tree has no ways, writes its designer, Frank Oppenheimer - an pushbuttons, no cranks, no manipulative parts; exhibit for everybody, including this girl watching how the pendulum can draw a circle while in straight back- but there are a lot of ways of interacting with it. and-forth motion. One can look at it, lie under it, climb and feel it. One can watch the leaf buds unfold, mature The fact that we use this exhibit for these into deepening greens and then oranges and multiple but specific purposes limits the reds until they fall off. One can study the bark, versatility of people's interactions with it, but the cambium layer, the root hairs; extract sap; not as severely as one might imagine.. True, learn about photosynthesis. One can hear the visitors cannot disassemble and rebuild the rustle and watch the swaying in the wind. One exhibit. True, we have not made provision for can draw or photograph the tree, carve initials the visitor to vary the swing periods of the table on it, chop it down, or just stand and watch the or the pendulum. (The clearest pedagogy sunlight diffract around the edges of the arises when the two motions swing leaves. One can even learn its name. synchronously. If either were readily adjustable, most visitors would not take the Our exhibits do not have quite this versatility. time to make the two motions synchronous and For one thing, we do not want people to chop thus would not perceive the most delightful them down; for another, the time scale is more effects of relative motion.) On the other hand, defined: at most, half an hour at any one we have not designed out all possibilities of exhibit piece, often much less. More variation. Although the pendulum swings most importantly, however, we conceive most of our readily at right angles to the table, it can also exhibit pieces as props to link a pedagogical swing parallel to the motion of the table with a chain; frequently the links are common to very different and not commensurate period. several different chains. Thus, the Relative The table itself can be made to vibrate Motion Swing, which has a swinging table perpendicular to its swing and, thereby, beneath a pendulum of the same period, can modulate the basic pattern of relative motion. be used in many contexts. One can use it in talking about vectors, about polarized light, People use this exhibit in many different ways. about Lissajous figures, about phase, Some just give the table a push as they walk amplitude and frequency, about damping, by but then, so do I. Others make everything about kinetic and potential energy, about frame move every which way producing a noisy, of reference and relative motion. For each of unintelligible relative motion pattern. I enjoy these topics this exhibit is but one link shared doing that too. Many people very by several other chains of exhibits, which may systematically let the table and the pendulum intersect at other links as well. swing at right angles to each other, trying to reproduce the indicated circles and diagonal lines of relative motion, learning about relative phases and amplitudes by trial and error. There are some visitors who know all about what the pendulums are "supposed" to show. They use the exhibit to instruct their friends and children - and I also use it that way.

This is a very good exhibit. I enjoy playing with it myself, and I enjoy showing it to you - no matter who you are; it is an exhibit for everybody. Many decisions went into its construction. It is versatile; visitors can find systematic things to do with it with relative ease; and one can obviously invent activities that are "out of context," clearly not part of any preconceived syllabus. The exhibit has other virtues as well. It is made entirely of hardware store parts: pipe, perforated angle iron, cable and turnbuckles, springs, etc. The hinging involves a short section of pipe rolling on two rods for the proper motion of the pendulum and a rocking motion from one rod to the other for the playful motions. The main defect in the exhibit is that, although there is elegance in the The Motor Effect exhibit design, there is virtually none in the craftsmanship. Perhaps it was built in too much of a hurry. garbage can pops up when I step on the foot lever, too." In contrast to the relative motion pendulum, our exhibit demonstrating the magnetic force on a This exhibit is a traditional wire carrying a current is a very poor one. We demonstration. It may even be a little better placed three exceptionally large permanent than most, because the magnet and the wire magnets to have a common poleface, making are out in the open and not behind glass. I a horizontal rectangular magnetic field, 10 frequently use the exhibit as a prop for inches deep and 2 inches high, with a gap of teaching electromagnetic phenomena, but I about 2 inches. A thick wire carries about 250 never play with it as I walk by or show it to amperes, triggered when a visitor steps on a friends who visit the Exploratorium. It is not for mat switch. The wire is hinged so that a me - it is not for you, it is for nobody. No side straight length of wire can move up and down effects branch from the main phenomenon that through the magnetic field. When the current is it demonstrates. It just does what it is turned on, the wire pops up through the field, supposed to do; there is no way to make it and the visitor who tries to push the wire down misbehave. It does not even contain any feels the large, springlike force of opposed redeeming features of beauty or whimsy. Too magnetic fields. One can even "feel" the much was designed out of the exhibit. In order current because of the imperfectly smoothed to let people feel how strong the force is, the direct current. A good deal of thought went into magnet was made strong; it would, therefore, the design and execution of the exhibit, and it have been dangerous to leave any loose forms an important link in a series of exhibits pieces of iron around. The wire is large and on electromagnetism. But it shows only one stiff in order to carry the 250 amperes without thing. When I demonstrated the piece to one of growing hot. It is a single twisted bundle of our staff members, she said, "The lid of my wires and not a loose collection of flexible ones truncated rubber highway marker mounted on top of it. The air stream supports a light-weight volley ball. The Bernoulli effect is strong enough so that one can feel an appreciable inward force if one tries to pull the ball out of the stream. People tap the ball and watch it oscillate in the stream; they partially cover the orifice with a hand or direct the stream to one side; they remove the ball and try to throw it so that it is caught by the stream. But they also do completely irrelevant things. Girls let their long hair stream up in the air current; kids hold their Tshirts over the orifice and let the air stream cool their bellies. Some people play catch with the ball either through or around the air stream. We lose about 25 balls a year - one per 20,000 visitors. If the ball is missing, people tear up bits of paper and see how these behave in the air stream. It is a pretty good exhibit, but we should build more links in this particular chain.

I cannot really say that I have noticed any difference in the way visitors to the Exploratorium behave on sunny and cloudy days. But for the staff and especially for me, and my feeling for you when you come to visit, whether the sun is turned on or not makes an In the Exploratorium’s Bernoulli Blower the air stream incredible difference. This is because of the from a powerful blower supports a light-weight ball, and Sun Painting. I think it crucially important to museum visitors can feel the forces on the ball and have an exhibit of such scale and beauty. A watch it move as the air-stream is changed. They can beam of sunlight comes through a skylight also do “completely irrelevant things,” says Dr. Oppenheimer - a fact which worries him less that the from a sunfollowing mirror to illuminate the problem of making the Blower exhibit “link more dusty gloom at the north end of the building. It intersecting chains of ideas.” strikes an angled flat mirror which sends it parallel to the floor into an array of vertical because a loose collection would have gone prisms; a multitude of vertical strips of mirror every which way and become tangled on the then pick up each individual spectral color, polefaces. We were too timid (or not clever directing each color first behind and then onto enough) to use such a messy array of wires. an eight-by-fifteen-foot frosted screen. The We used a permanent magnet rather than a exhibit demonstrates light scattering, prisms variable electromagnet because we thought and mirrors and color, and sunlight. It is a the exhibit would thereby be conceptually more brilliant abstract painting that shimmers and obvious. Thus, one by one, we designed out changes as people move in the light path and any and all the features that might have made brush against the mylar mirrors behind the the exhibit worth spending some time with. We frosted screen. We have other exhibits of converted the tree into a telephone pole. beauty, and without them the museum would be sterile and incomplete; but none are so fine Although the best exhibits commonly link as the Sun Painting. Not all the exhibits in the several intersecting chains of ideas, this museum need to be of great beauty, but surely property is not essential. The Bernoulli Blower some must be, or the place would be for is a case in point. Here, a large blower has a nobody. An exhibit of the scale and beauty of the Sun Painting - the work of artist Bob Miller - is ”crucially important" for a science museum, says Frank Oppenheimer. The scattering of sunlight through a series of prisms paints colors onto a giant screen - ”a brilliant abstract painting that shimmers and changes as people move in the light path and brush against the Mylar mirrors behind the screen," writes Dr. Oppenheimer.

The Benefits of Overkill sound waves, of waves on an oscilloscope, and waves in a string or a flat plate. Some of The attributes of exhibits that I have described our exhibits on waves are grouped together as - their beauty, their multiple linkages with a sub-section in the museum. Many of them different themes, the inclusion of extraneous are scattered in various other topical sections possibilities for intervention and discovery have of the museum. proved to be important to the overall effectiveness of the museum. There are other Even phenomena less pervasive than waves general practices that are important. In need multiple and varied examples so visitors particular, when we make an effort to illustrate can develop an intuitive understanding. We some process or behavior that is pervasive in have three exhibits on stroboscopic nature (refraction, resonance, or sensory illumination, and plan several more. There are lateral inhibition, for example), this behavior is at least half a dozen on spatial and temporal presented in many exhibit pieces. Each beats, but we still need simpler and clearer illustrates the same underlying process in very exhibits on this topic. We have two dozen different contexts. For example, wave motion is exhibits about the perception and mixing of a powerful abstraction that could not be color, and well over a dozen different ways to perceived from any single type of wave. But involve people in the basic phenomena of the concept can take shape by observing the depth perception through binocular vision. One effect of light waves and water waves and of the great virtues of museums stems from the possibility that visitors can, by themselves, of air is converted into a sustained tone in a achieve a very satisfying understanding musical instrument. through abstraction from multiple and contextually different examples. Many We are planning other links in this resonance museums fail to provide this possibility chain. We know roughly how to demonstrate because they show only a single the resonance absorption of yellow light by representative example of each effect or sodium vapor, but we have not yet managed to process. develop this important exhibit. On the other hand, we have not yet decided how to convey A Different Drum to Demonstrate what is going on in a resonant electrical circuit. Resonance Perhaps, after we have built more links in an electrical phenomena chain, a method for this The basic problems of exhibit design are not particular demonstration will occur to us. There solved by the general considerations that I are no general prescriptions for exhibit design have outlined. Each effect, each idea, each that will solve this problem. Yet it is precisely way of conceiving some aspect of nature on the success in finding such solutions that requires a topic-specific design. One sees the the quality of science museums depends. need for an exhibit - that is, one is aware of a crucial link that is missing at the beginning or Addiction to Individual Discovery middle or end of some topical chain. The need may become apparent while teaching our A museum's logistics force its staff to have aides or in conducting some of the formal flexible teaching strategies. Conducting a classes here. Frequently this need festers for a group tour is impossible. It is also impossible, year or more before someone on the staff or a even if one wished, to insist that visitors work visitor suggests a reasonable way of forging with the exhibits in a prescribed order. In a the link. In the meantime one continues to crowded museum, the visitor may not be able fabricate less crucial links in the chain. to progress to the "next step" because other people are in the way. Even people who come For example, we have been developing many together take separate paths and0 then call to exhibits on optical and acoustical resonance, each other, "Hey, come look at this!" When but we have not figured out how to show, staff members are frustrated by our visitors' clearly and convincingly, what goes on when a tendency to this kind of "Brownian motion," I non-resonant device, like a bow, excites a urge them to look back and remember how resonant violin string. We are getting closer. many different kinds of patterns and We increased the weight of the rope that is circumstances in their own learning were stretched across the 120 feet of the museum wonderful like the variety of my mountain so that when the visitors jerk the rope they can walks. feel the reflected pulse pull on their hand a moment later. We have a series of different The character of our visitors' exploration of the length glass pipes, each of which responds, museum is the main reason for our having like a seashell held to the ear, by selecting and aides - we call them Explainers - moving resounding a characteristic note out of the around the floor, stopping to play with or fix ambient noise of the museum. We have a 400- one of the exhibits. (Any attempt to repair an pound pendulum that visitors can put in motion exhibit invariably draws an eager group.) only by pulling repeatedly and at the proper time on a cord that is very weakly attached to The difficult problem for the staff is how to the pendulum by a small magnet. We are show our visitors the path leading to the building an Aeolian harp. All of these exhibits broader vistas and the sense of unity and work around the edge of the basic phenomena, coherence that one would like them to perceive but we still do not have anything to show how and which, to a large extent, they would like to the rubbing of a bow or the hissing of a stream find. The remarkable feature of the process of ingredients to be specified on medicinal labels. individual discovery, whether of detail or of As a result, the disinfectant spray, Bactine, for generality, is that the first taste of success can example, has an unenlightening label that be addicting. For some obscure reason we, as reads: "Alcohol 3.17 per cent, teachers, are committed to turning on addicts. Methylbenzethonium chloride, But potential addicts are not programmable; isooctylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol and one never knows who they are or when they chiorothymol." Why should not this information are vulnerable. We argue among ourselves: if be given in a pamphlet explaining which we do not tell people what they are supposed ingredient serves as bacticide, which as to find, many will leave with a sense of fungicide and which as deodorant? It could frustration, but a few will have become even explain why these particular organics are addicted to finding more than anybody knew effective, painless, and commercially was there. How many frustrated people is one profitable. Museum curators invariably addict worth? Since there is no going back if complain that the public does not read. But I one gives away too much, we tend to lean see no reason for a museum to cater to the toward the more radical answer to this fact that many people have been put off arguable question. And we do have a large language by the way it is so deliberately used number of addicts who come back for more. with dishonesty in commercial and political life.

For the many who feel somewhat frustrated At Ease with Trivia in a Non-Trivial Place because their curiosity has been aroused but not satisfied, we have persuaded ourselves The Exploratorium is a good museum because that we can enrich the museum experience by of the care and thoughtfulness with which the preparing written, take-home material related exhibits have been conceived, designed, and to our exhibits. In addition, we should be able assembled. But many of the people who visit to make short topical television programs us stress, and perhaps exaggerate, the which use our exhibits as props. The broadcast importance of the general ambience of the programs would not be for national distribution place. Some aspects of this ambience may be but would help people who had visited the essential to our purposes. The remarkable museum and who planned to return. We also spaciousness of the hall is sell relevant books and reprints in the museum certainly unique. It is also vital that we do not store. This reliance on take-home written fragment the space with walls that define material may seem to be a cop-out from the subject matter boundaries. Since we want task of designing better exhibits. There is, visitors to explore and invent in a way to which however, no valid reason for rejecting the they are unaccustomed, we avoid the usual abundant use of language, especially if the plethora of written and verbal commands as to language is based on the kind of broad how they should behave. We also resist experience that people can find in the making rules whose sole purpose is to reduce Exploratorium. the amount of work or decision-making required of the staff. We are careful not to be overly wordy in the signs that accompany the exhibits, but, in fact, The most important aspect of the ambience of we have not adequately solved the problems the Exploratorium may stem from the fact that associated with exhibit graphics. Too many visitors are never subjected to judgmental words can be intimidating and can discourage discomfiture. They do not feel compelled to people from trusting their own ability to explore decide whether they are supposed to learn and find things out for themselves. It is also something from an exhibit or merely to enjoy true that words can be used to fool people into themselves. If they stand before an exhibit and believing that they have been enlightened. For say, "Gosh, my eight-year-old child could do example, concerns about consumer protection that," this remark is made approvingly. It is not have led to legislation that requires the the familiar disparaging or derisive statement that is heard in an art gallery. Nothing in the setting, label, or symbolism suggests to the visitor that he must decide whether an exhibit is truly great art or great science or an outstanding intellectual achievement of the human mind. It is in this one respect - and only in this one - that we may conceivably fool people, because many of the things they look at really do reflect the extraordinary quality of somebody's achievement and imagination.

Even in this respect, though, I doubt that we really fool people. They are certainly aware that the Exploratorium is not a trivial place. But we do nothing that would make people feel uncomfortable with non-triviality; else why do so many teachers bring students, why do so many students bring back their parents and families and friends? And why would those few adults who come alone invariably express regret that they do not have their children or grandchildren with them?

I suspect that everybody - not just you and I genuinely wants to share and feel at home with the cumulative and increasingly coherent awareness of nature that is the traditional harvest of scientists and artists.

The exhibits that we have designed, the “Discovering the Exploratorium is like stumbling into the thematic emphasis on perception and the belly of a giant whale where some mad scientist has found a home,” writes its director, Frank Oppenheimer. general atmosphere of the Exploratorium, go a The museum’s unlikely home is the cavernous Palace of long way toward making this sharing possible Fine Arts in San Francisco, originally created for the for an indescribably diverse population. There 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. In 1969 is a great deal left to do and learn in order to Dr. Oppenheimer set out to create there an institution complete what we have started. As we mature that would make science and technology more it also seems ever more important to us that accessible to the public – “a place where people could not only learn, but participate.” Now the asphalt floors we learn how to integrate what happens here feel the footsteps of 400,000 visitors a year, and the with learning and enjoyment that takes place at concrete walls resound to a public invited in “to touch, home, in the city and country, and in schools. pound, open, pull on, look through, listen to, screech at, In the meantime, it is wonderful and rewarding and climb through.” to just wander around the floor, watching, listening to, and occasionally talking to the visitors. Perhaps each of us is in some way everybody, and the surest way to delight others is to find what is a delight to ourselves and to the people we are fond of.